- Mississippi Free Press

Youth Media Project class with final certificates

MFP Voices

Full Circle Moments: Youth Media Project Is Back for Jackson-Area Teenagers. Apply Now.

Mississippi Youth Media Project students are full-time, paid journalists working in their downtown Jackson, Miss., newsroom during the YMP summer programs. New Program Manager Melishia Grayson is an educator who came of age mentored by Dr. Bob Moses at Lanier High School to believe that young people can and need to use their own voices to shape new media narratives about themselves—and bring solutions to their communities. Enrollment for the 2023 summer programs is open now.

Melishia D. Brooks May 23, 2023

Leslie Burl McLemore seated in an office with a Jackson State University flag to his right

Culture

Dr. Leslie-Burl McLemore Receives Lifetime Achievement Award for Civil-Rights Leadership

The Mississippi Historical Society honored Mississippi native Leslie Burl McLemore with its 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award on March 3, 2023, for his efforts as a student leader during the heights of the Civil Rights Movement and for his accomplishments with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Dustin Cardon March 3, 2023

a photo of the members of the Mississippi ethics commission gathered at a meeting

MFP Voices

Losing the Battle to Win the War: A Transparent Government is Democracy

“Every person in Mississippi has the right to know how our legislative public servants are making decisions and why,” Donna Ladd writes.

Donna Ladd December 5, 2022

Culture

‘Still Learning’: Natchez Reckons with Its Racist Past and Celebrates Local Black History

The city of Natchez’ centuries-old historic homes, and the wealth behind their construction, came at tremendous human cost, with the city’s prosperity built upon the backs of enslaved Black Americans.

Dustin Cardon February 11, 2022

Actor Sidney Poitier poses for a portrait in Beverly Hills, Calif. on June 2, 2008. Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, died Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. He was 94. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

MFP Voices

Rest in Peace, Dignity: A Brief Tribute to Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier was dignity personified, which allowed him to portray every type of existing Black man on American terrain that was stolen from indigenous people and worked by the children of the sun. Poitier was not concerned about the paycheck he might lose from his act of artistic and political defiance; he was concerned about his art aiding in the uplift and liberation of African peoples.

C. Liegh McInnis January 11, 2022

Bob Moses teaching math to students at Lanier High School

MFP Voices

The Algebra Project: Bob Moses’ ‘Gateway to Equality’ for Black Students

As an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s, Bob Moses traveled to the most dangerous parts of Mississippi to help African Americans end segregation and secure the right to vote. But it would be tutoring students in math 20 years later at his daughter’s racially mixed middle school in Massachusetts that would lead to his life’s work—The Algebra Project.

Hasan Kwame Jeffries July 30, 2021

Civil rights activists, from left, Bob Moses, Dave Dennis, Rita Schwerner Bender, Leroy Clemons, Myrlie Evers-Williams and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga

News

Continue Bob Moses’ ‘Unfinished Work’ With Voting Rights Bills, Biden Tells Congress

Congress should honor Bob Moses, the longtime voting rights leader who died Sunday at age 86, by continuing his work to protect voting rights, President Joe Biden said in a statement late Monday. Moses, a Harlem, N.Y., native, moved to the deep south in the early 1960s to lead voter-registration efforts in Jim Crow Mississippi.

Ashton Pittman July 27, 2021

Bob Moses stands in the old Mississippi Capitol in front of the old Mississippi flag with the Confederate canton showing. He is wearing a blue sports coast and looking downward

MFP Voices

Rest in Power, Bob Moses and Emmett Till: Younger People Will Continue to Pay Your Legacy Forward

Bob Moses, a civil-rights hero who fought white supremacy and sharecropper education with every tool at his disposal, died at age 86 on the same day that Emmett Till would’ve turned 80, had white supremacists not brutally murdered the 14-year-old in 1955. They both have long inspired young people to seek systemic change.

Donna Ladd July 25, 2021

MFP Voices

The Vestiges of Jim Crow and the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission

The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state-funded spy agency charged with resisting integration and civil-rights activity, actively surveilled these civil rights activists and allowed law enforcement agencies to openly violate their constitutional rights in Jim Crow Mississippi. Those were dangerous times that still affect my family today.

Leo Carney May 20, 2021

Full Circle Moments: Youth Media Project Is Back for Jackson-Area Teenagers. Apply Now.

Dr. Leslie-Burl McLemore Receives Lifetime Achievement Award for Civil-Rights Leadership

Losing the Battle to Win the War: A Transparent Government is Democracy

‘Still Learning’: Natchez Reckons with Its Racist Past and Celebrates Local Black History

Rest in Peace, Dignity: A Brief Tribute to Sidney Poitier

The Algebra Project: Bob Moses’ ‘Gateway to Equality’ for Black Students

Continue Bob Moses’ ‘Unfinished Work’ With Voting Rights Bills, Biden Tells Congress

Rest in Power, Bob Moses and Emmett Till: Younger People Will Continue to Pay Your Legacy Forward

The Vestiges of Jim Crow and the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission

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